Ali Abdolrezaei

aç?yor penceremi
- günayd?n !

ve elmalar koyuyor masam?n üzerine
sararan yapraklar?n? istemeyen bir dal

nedir bu çöküntü böyle
daha ne kadar kalabilirsin bu kuytuda, haydi!

durmu? balkonda
gençliklerimi izliyorum
?imdi senin büyümü?lü?ünün k?y?s?ndan geçiyor
ve günlerin y?k?nt?lar? üzerinde balkonda duruyorlar
bamba?ka bir yerde sona erinceye kadar bazen bak???m?n ninnisiyle sallan?yor elma dallar aras?nda
bazen büyükanne bir ihtiyar delikanl?y? dü?ünüyor
bazen sar? elmalar reddediyorlar sonbahar?
bazen büyükanne…
bazen elmalar…
dün gece bir rüya gördüm
ya?am?m gibi
              ölüyordum!

çeviren: m. bülent k?l?ç

April puts blossoms on branches, my mother said.
My father said, a passing man footprints in snow.
February* stormed to the streets when
I wasn’t there to sing.
These dreams don’t fool me, I speak.
I strike so that I’m not stricken, you with me?
This horse needs a giving
Not a heavy hand, let me be!
For I’ve been lost in this poem.
My mark is that I’ve dreamt somewhere
In this world they have duped the cat,**
Her sleeping limbs spread out 
And stuck in the Gulf: She
Neither rose up against the arms commanding STOP!
Nor did she turn into stones rising, up in arms.

They stuck together to strike and were struck down.
Torture us!
In piles.
One by
One.
We have become accustomed
To the cobblestones of these alleys.
Kick us!
Some part of this shattering glass
will crack a smile.

You are folded over
The windows of this world–
Which you mistake for your toilet.
Let go of those opiumed-out cocks,
Catnapping petrol dreams.
This man, tied in thought over
His shoestrings, sheds his shoes.
This piss puddle of yours is in vain,
I’ll let you cast this earth into the sea.
Go ahead!
For concocting this ball
That you must drop,
Laud! Applaud!  
Applaud yourselves!

*The Iranian Revolution culminated in February 1979.
**The map of Iran is in the shape of a “resting cat”, with the Persian Gulf to its south.
This poem is from a volume titled, This Dear Cat.

tr. Niloufar Talebi©2004 

Permission to speak, Sir!*

If the bull slipped**
If the rooftop dropped
Would we always die under all the steel beams?

Teacher stirred his face
Peeled his hands from the pit of his pockets
And the sky sat on whatever grade it was.

Crushed desks!
The lessons that fell out of the children’s hands!!
And the walls, what they did not dream for the people!!!
A little hand crops up from the rubble
And a single finger speaks!!

Permission, Sir!
May I rise up?

tr. Niloufar Talebi©2004

*Schoolchildren in Iran ask permission for XYZ by raising their hand above their head indicating their index finger.

** According to an ancient Persian Myth of Creation, the earth rotates on the horn of a bull. Legend was if the bull coughed, the earth would slip off its horn, causing an earthquake.

I walk out of old picture frames
step into the street
return to the other side of muddy walls
to empty myself of boredom of seeing the old man who is standing in the shade
he walks out of old picture frames
and escapes into himself
so that the face that has survived in a letter in my book
can return to the opposite walls.

Translation: M. Alexandrian

Neither am I in the corner of the store
which was full of old shoes
nor the corner of the world
which is the store of the dead
I’m here
ah mirror, watch me for a while!
Should I die
what matters
if the sun shines
or there is no kerosene,
your mistake happened always in that highway
which said return!

Translation: M. Alexandrian

I was reciting poem when she knocked the gate
I jumped over the sofa and Granazi flowerpot
and in the silence that was thrown on the water
I heard the sound of turning lock and the door that was pulled back
I saw myself behind the door
like the day that I was in the mirror
still he was ringing the bell
without saying anything like the day I was in the mirror
it entered the house and shook my hands
the hand that shut the gate and throw it out of the house.
 
I have not walked this long poem to return
I am standing behind the gate and ringing again and again
I know! The last couplet lines in this alley.

Translation: M. Alexandrian

There’s nothing of any Accident that happens is not accidentally
Even in the world that I didn’t want it surely
Was accidental
I should take for formerly
I don’t have any time for subsequently
There’s no benefit in so many times that …ing merely
For a lifetime I was lady’s affairs for actually
For example in the name of ever haven’t registered to make a household position less
Anyone who passed by my directions
Directed that way that doesn’t have fairly       so never mind
Was twisting in my lines
Doesn’t have kindly            so never mind
Was taking nothing
Off course I’m not too much I wrote too much
Subsequently someone will come & erase all the things that I didn’t write
In the directions of my biography
In my view I’m viewed so much
I view the woman from another view in vain
There’s no doubt that I wasn’t that much ,they were
Same as committing suicide
Or same as committing suicide
In same as have been ruled somewhere I pandered/ ruled somewhere
I have lain somewhere
That’s convening violating doubts
In the words that I have heard from the certain
When I don’t have the certainly
Too keep a kindness for subsequently
I don’t have a hand in the style of kindly
To put on the hair of comparatively
I did have too much such as the wife, formerly
I didn’t too much of it heartily
Don’t have with kidding
Don’t kidding against the anymore
Same as with anything that is, I had an especial feeling
I’ve an especial being with anything that was
I don’t make forgiving on & off
My now doesn’t let that drunkenness has passed from fearing
Results from an I don’t fear who had a fearless head
To not fear that was resulted to this fear
Fearing of real when passes   doesn’t heed
Doesn’t leave from really but not
There’s an accident that’s happening in the accidentally
 
Translated by :Ali Masoodi Nia

May be earth is hand full of dust
Fall in hear  down hear
May be thay have left it in a little river
Like a paper boat
That I fluid it in my childhood
I knew jografi as mach as a little vally
 that would end me to her house
that vally had seven windows
and every window had senenty girls
that every day was opening on the middle of the moon
may be stil hand full of dust
have fallen up there moon
how dose anyone would know
may be the kid send his kite to the sky
that he dosent know
what has happened to it

I was stubborn
That I turned to pices

Translation: Jennifer Langer

Do not worry my son
Her brothers are gone
And her sisters never come back
Mother has got a lot to cry
Father dosent leave her a lone
Lets pray for her a bit
She will be alright my son
Don’t cry any more
I will be better
yes
I promises

Translation: Jennifer Langer

I’m in love with a bridge
Which is love with the sea
I recline on its old cobblestones
                        and compose poem
                                many times each night
It looks that the river under its feet has mirror
and do not show favour to several languages I am crying
(the little boy has been composing good poems
he thought that I have fallen in love with the sea
I!… even he has go the wrong mad way
I!… only wanted
                even up to some single hands
                no one hear
that he detached a cobblestone off my hearth
I!… I have fallen in love with him
who from somewhere through these nights flung the earth over himself
so harshly that from anywhere of these days
they found his inflated corpse
like the river under my feet
and they said that
Mad boy!
How deeply he was in love with the sea
I!
I have fallen in love with him )

Translation: Payam Fotouhiepour